I saw this subject over on the bowsite and found it interesting. I have copied a couple of posts below.

TR states: WOW, After having read and reviewed the text and Drawings in United States Patent Office patent numbers RE37,544 , 6,082,347, & 5,934,265 I'm left scratching my head. My guess is that Hoyt must be paying a royalty on CAM & ½ to Darton.

my thoughts: I printed out and read through the patents belonging to Darton. (it took a special program to view the diagrams). In my humble opinion, the cam+1/2 would certainly appear to be covered by Dartons patents.

As long as Hoyt is paying a royalty to Darton, this would be no different than other bow companies paying a royalty to Mathews for using their cam designs.

Who would have guessed that the little guys like Darton would be out doing the big guys like Hoyt in the R & D department?

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I saw this subject over on the bowsite and found it interesting. I have copied a couple of posts below.

TR states: WOW, After having read and reviewed the text and Drawings in United States Patent Office patent numbers RE37,544 , 6,082,347, & 5,934,265 I'm left scratching my head. My guess is that Hoyt must be paying a royalty on CAM & ½ to Darton.

my thoughts: I printed out and read through the patents belonging to Darton. (it took a special program to view the diagrams). In my humble opinion, the cam+1/2 would certainly appear to be covered by Dartons patents.

As long as Hoyt is paying a royalty to Darton, this would be no different than other bow companies paying a royalty to Mathews for using their cam designs.

Who would have guessed that the little guys like Darton would be out doing the big guys like Hoyt in the R & D department?



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It doesn't take much of a change to the product for any company to legally produce something very similar.
To remove all speculation , my suggestion would be to contact Hoyt and ask them if their paying royalties to Darton.

Martin Archery patented Vibration Escape Modules in 1995(I believe) and Mathews came out with their Harmonic Dampeners in 2000 and I dont believe they paid any royalties to Martin.

I don't know whether or not they are paying royalties, but from what I understand from a pretty reliable inside source is Darton was &quot;not very happy&quot; with Hoyt blantantly using their product design without even so much as a call asking them, thinking they could just do whatever they want because they are an industry giant, one of the &quot;big three&quot;.

When Merlin decided to go with their version of the CPS/cam and a half, they immediately contacted Darton and discussed everything before any new Merlin designs were ever drawn up, and after the discussion &quot;shook hands&quot; and everything is fine between them. In fact they were discussing more things at the ATA show,(owners of both Merlin and Darton) and laughing and joking over who knows what. That's all it takes if you do things the way they are supposed to be done! Hoyt seemingly didn't do things quite that way I guess and is why the grumblings continue, at least as of the beginning of the ATA show anyway. Hopefully they will get everything straightened around between them.

The new Merlin Omega system offers the best attributes of both the CPS and the cam and a half, and will grab more than it's share of the market once it starts getting out there, I feel confident about that after seeing and drawing the prototypes. Mine are only about 4 weeks away from arrival, and I can't wait to run them through the testing mill to see how they match up having already tried both the CPS and the cam and a half. Ben from Merlin promises good things as he has both over there to compare the Omega to also. Have to wait and see.

Hybrid, anyone? <img src=icon_smile_wink.gif border=0 align=middle> Pinwheel 12



Edited by - Pinwheel 12 on 02/06/2003 05:19:13